Can you describe this work?

The sculpture looks like a stack of polystyrene blocks that have been graffitied and scratched. But these blocks are actually casts of the polystyrene cubes we use in the studio as supports while making other works. At the back of the piece, there’s an accumulation of “urban” litter – some cans of beer, some drinking bottles – but they’re casts too. It’s detritus you would expect to see at a public monument where people hang about and drink or spend time. Why cast the thing when you could just have the thing? Well, there’s something in knowing that the object isn’t what the eye is telling you it is; it destabilises your thinking about materiality, and that destabilisation is fundamental to the making of sculpture.

What are the techniques and materials used?

The blocks were cast in fibreglass and Jesmonite, using silicon and rubber moulds. The paint was applied directly into the inside of the mould so that it transferred onto the piece in the casting process, which meant I had less control of the outcome. The original polystyrene blocks probably have a similar lifespan to many monuments from ancient civilisation, and certainly last longer than the materials that make up the work.

What is the work about?

Material transformation really interests me. There’s an ecological anxiety around materials that we see as impermanent – we use them as if they were disposable but in fact they are not. The work is partly about the idea of civilisation in decline, that some things are still standing and seem permanent, but that’s not guaranteed. I made the work this year, and though it’s not polemical, it’s certainly influenced by recent political events. There’s a loss of confidence in structures that we thought we could rely on, a sense of order that’s crumbling.